Chapter 5 - Stitches Under Fluorescent Light
The ER smelled like bleach and cold air. I sat on the edge of the gurney with a paper sheet stuck to the back of my thighs, my sequined dress cut up the side to the knee so they could get to my leg. Someone had given me a hospital sock for my bare foot. The other foot still had my shoe on.
The doctor was a woman about fifty, short hair pulled back, gloves snapping at her wrists. She didn't ask what happened first. She lifted my right forearm under the bright light and turned it slow.
"You've got glass in here," she said. "Three small pieces. And these cuts here across the forearm — that's a defensive pattern. You put your arm up."
I stared at the thin red lines. I didn't remember putting my arm up. I remembered the checkered floor cold against my cheek and the sound of my own breathing.
She picked at the glass with tweezers and dropped each piece into a metal tray with a tick. "This is going to sting," she said before the numbing shots. It did. My hand jerked and she waited, her hand resting lightly on my wrist until I stopped shaking.
"Your hand too," she said. "Palm and knuckle. And this one on your cheekbone will need two stitches. Face heals clean if we keep it clean."
A nurse wheeled over a suture cart. While the doctor worked on my cheek, pulling the skin tight, I could see past her shoulder to the whiteboard with my name on it: RUIZ, E. — LACS. FALL? The question mark was written in blue marker.
The tug of the first stitch brought back the ballroom two hours earlier. Not the whole night, just the seating chart flash on the screen and my little table near the stage. I'd been hired to sing two songs between speeches. I'd been looking down at my water glass when I felt it — someone watching. I looked up and Vanessa Hale was three tables over in that magenta dress, her hair low and perfect, not talking to the woman next to her, just looking straight at me. She didn't smile. She didn't look away.
I blinked and the doctor was saying, "Done. Hold this gauze here."
A deputy came in after that. Young, his uniform still creased, hat in his hand. He pulled the curtain half-closed and stood too far from the bed, like he didn't want to crowd me.
"Miss Ruiz, I just need a quick incident report for the file," he said. "Can you tell me in your own words what happened in the hallway?"
My mouth went dry. I could see Vanessa standing over me with the shoe raised. I could see Marcus in the doorway. I could see that red light on the ceiling camera blinking.
I opened my mouth. "I—" The gauze slipped and I pressed it back to my cheek. "It happened fast. There was glass on the floor. We — I fell."
He wrote that down. "Who else was in the hallway with you?"
I hesitated. That pause stretched. The heart monitor beeped steady behind me. I knew if I said their names, it would be real in a way I couldn't take back.
"Mr. and Mrs. Hale were there," I said finally.
He nodded, didn't look surprised. "Security called us late. Said Mr. Hale requested no police in the hallway. Wanted to handle it private, donor event and all. We came anyway when the ambulance was dispatched."
I looked at him. "He asked for no police?"
"Yes, ma'am. Said it was a misunderstanding. Fell on a champagne tray, is what he told them."
A champagne tray. My arm throbbed under the bandage. The doctor's words came back — defensive pattern, glass embedded — and I held onto them like something solid.
May you like
The deputy tore a card off his pad and set it on the tray table. "That report's started now. With these lacerations documented, you've got an official record. If you remember more, you call me."
After he left, the nurse handed me discharge papers and a plastic bag with the glass pieces listed as removed foreign bodies. I sat there in that cut-up dress holding the bag, thinking about Vanessa watching me from three tables away and Marcus telling security to keep it quiet, and I realized I didn't know which one scared me more.
